Criminal Minds: The Naming of Cats (JJ)

[truepenny]

Gideon
Hotch
Reid
Garcia
Elle
Morgan
Prentiss


JENNIFER JAREAU

In Withycombe's exalted purlieus, Jennifer gets only "see GUENEVERE." So we turn obediently to Guenevere and get:

Guenevere, Guinevere: Welsh Gwenhwyvar, the name of the wife of King Arthur. In Anglo-Norman the name became Guenièvre, and the English metrical romances give it as Gwenore, Gonore, Ganor, Gaynore, Wannour, Wannore. Guener and Gueanor occur in Lancashire at the beginning of the 17th C. In Scotland it became Guanor, Vanora, or Wander. Gaenor is still used in N. Wales, though no longer associated with Guenevere, and Gaynor is now sometimes used in England. Gwenhevare occurs as a christian name in Shropshire in 1431. In Cornwall the name has survived in the form Jenifer down to the present time. In the present century Jen(n)ifer has become fashionable in the rest of England. See also WINIFRED.

Rule also points to Guinevere, but adds to the etymology a meaning for the Welsh Gwynhwyvar: "White wave, white phantom," and Spence follows her.

I see two quite distinct sets of meanings for JJ's given name. (And there's also the trilingual semi-pun between JJ and Gabriel that Bear and I talk about over here.)

First of all, there's the dirt commonness of the name Jennifer in the generation of which JJ is a part. Jennifer and Sarah are the stereotypical names for American women born in the 70s, just as Jason and Brian are for men. And this matches perfectly with JJ's frictionless all-American surface. High-school jock, pretty little Bambi-eyed blonde who gets along with everyone and gives nothing of herself away. The only time we learn anything about JJ is in "North Mammon," when--as is so often the case in CM--she reveals most about herself when talking about others. Mostly, for the profilers, they reveal themselves in discussions of the unsubs; JJ reveals herself in a discussion of the victims. And notice that the conventional True Confessions moment in "The Boogeyman" is very deliberately played, by both JJ and the writers, as an exercise in misinformation. The name Jennifer is as unrevealing, in its quintessential Americanness, as JJ's façade.

But then there's the second level, Guinevere's level. We don't, mercifully, have to map JJ into the love triangle of Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot, because there is no Arthur in CM, only the knights of the Round Table. JJ does stand in a "feminine" role vis a vis the profilers: she's support staff, doing endless liaison work between the BAU and the press, the BAU and local law enforcement . . . But as Hotch realizes, JJ's "feminine" role is also a role with a lot of power. She's more like Morgan le Fay than Guinevere, in the sense of being an eminence grise.

Jareau is obviously French in origin; other than that, I don't know of any significance to it. JJ, like Hotch, uses a nickname that completely elides her given name. Like making Guinevere a high school jock and a relentlessly competent FBI agent, this contributes to the show's ongoing genderfuck. Of which we approve.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* You had different stereotypical names in high school than we did. With you on the "Jennifer" and "Brian," though. I was about the only Sarah, but there were a bunch of Katies and Erics.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Huh. Regional variation, maybe? Because there was, iirc, one Eric and maybe a couple of Kathys (variously spelled), but I don't think there were any Katies.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Must be. *g*

Also, two years make a difference....

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

And that's the difference that (I believe) 10 years makes ... in 1977, Sarah / Sara was the most common girl's name - I was almost never in a class without at least one other. I think Jennifer was number 2, and variants on Katherine were fairly popular. Erin, by contrast, was not.

-Nameseeker

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Does Gaenor/Gaynor look like an odd name to you?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Odd in what sense?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Like the sort of name you wouldn't expect someone to have?

The way Withycombe is talking about it there, you'd think it was uncommon, whereas to me I'd put it second only to Jennifer as an expectable variant, and I was wondering if it was because I'm Welsh, and because I went to primary school with two girls called Gaynor. (One with very dark hair, very blue eyes, thick as two short planks, and the other cunning, bouncy dark curls, best arm-wrestler in the class, could turn cartwheels and tell ghost stories.)

I was also wondering if "gay" in the modern meaning might have affected its popularity adversely recently, because I don't remember running into any little Gaynors even in Wales in Z's generation. But to me it's a name like Susan and Alison that one could perfectly well give to somebody's sister, if you know what I mean.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I've never known anybody named Gaynor, either in my own generation or earlier. So, yes, I would consider it an odd name.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I'd consider it a perfectly common *last* name.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

It's a different spelling, but for what it's worth, here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jarreau) what her surname reminds me of.

Although I don't know what jazz from the second half of last century means to these writers, if it means anything.

[randee15.livejournal.com]

There's also a Jarreau, Louisiana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarreau,_Louisiana), though I too have no idea whether that has any significance. But maybe it influenced their decision to make Will LaMontagne be from Louisiana?

[randee15.livejournal.com]

Argh, can't figure out how to edit an entry here. But I found Jarreau (http://www.ancestry.ca/facts/Jarreau-family-history-ca.ashx) in the Dictionary of American Family Names (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4):

French: from a diminutive of Old French garra "crock or jar for oil", presumably a metonymic occupational name for a maker of such crocks or for a producer or seller of aromatic or comestible oils. This name is concentrated in LA [Louisiana].

P.S. I apologize for the lateness of my reply. Or replies, rather.